Thursday, April 28, 2016

Unfortunately this isn't a rarity anymore

Anyway, time went on and the rhetoric continued to escalate, and certain ideas came to the fore that my gut and my rational brain told me were no good. But I resisted questioning them. I told myself that the reason I didn’t like them was unconscious sexism/racism etc., and to resist those questions was the right thing for a man to do in order to fight the “patriarchy.” The right thing for me to do was feel guilty for the color of my skin and the fact that I’m a guy; the right thing to do was shut up and fall in line. Needless to say, these feelings were nothing but fodder for my depression. By the end of 2014 I was genuinely convinced that my ceasing to exist would be beneficial to the world in some way. I was never directly harassed on tumblr, but the environment had proven itself toxic regardless. December 2014 was my nadir; trudging home from the metro in a daze, I wandered through several busy intersections with no concerns for my own safety. On some level I was hoping to get hit. Then something interesting happened. I heard a voice in my head; my voice, telling me that this was not the end, that I am stronger than this, that I would not be beaten. That moment, the façade of the SJW ideology began to crack, and I began to claw my way out of that dark place with some newfound clarity.

If you're prone to self-doubt, the social justice internet is a minefield. I'm old and have a pretty good bullshit detector, and I'm certainly not immune to it. Theories of structural privilege lose their effectiveness when applied to individuals and personalities, even those -- sometimes especially those -- with the most "privilege."